Teaching My Children To Read
By Crystal Miller
I am not an expert by any means, but I can share with you what has worked for me and it may not be what will work for everyone. I have taught all of my 7 older children to read and can share with you my method.
First I teach them their ABC’s. If they are not to the point where they can remember what each letter is when they look at it, then they will not be ready to remember the phonic sounds. I have used just about every method for teaching them this, ABC books, videos, coloring pages, computer games, etc… I will often write the letter and tell my child what it is, have them say it back to me and then hang it somewhere where they can see it. Several times during the day I will ask them, “What letter is this?” if they don’t remember I tell them and if they do remember I tell them “Great!” and move onto a new letter. Really any method that works and is not a real stress to me or them is perfect. Once they know their letters then I go onto the wonderful book **“Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons”. I have used this book for all of my children so far and plan to use it on my 4yr. Old when he is ready. However they do have the child doing writing lessons in the book and I do not do these. I think too much writing at too young of an age really frustrates the child. I will often not worry about handwriting until 1st grade, or have them practice on their name or something that would be simple. I try, if my child is ready, to get through this book during the kindergarten year. By first grade they are reading at about 2nd grade level using this book. In the past I have then put them into a standard 1st grade program such as, ACE School of Tomorrow, or Rod and Staff etc… This year I found the most wonderful program called **Phonics Tutor on CD. It is very basic and has no frills or excitement to it, but it does a fantastic job of reinforcing the basic phonics sounds, filling in the phonic gaps that ‘Teach Your Child’ has and works on spelling! My first grader is progressing better than any of my children ever did in first grade. The program is spendy but worth every penny. She spends about 15 minutes a day on it. Between 2nd and 3rd grade I continue to work on phonic skills with work books or with what ever standardized program I am using |
